Thursday, February 18, 2016

It screens on Saturday March 5th at 8pm, as part of the Comedy Program, tickets are $12 on the door, or $10 online. More details on the other shorts and awards here, and tickets are available from the same link. That's on my birthday, which makes it a lovely present for me.

The awards ceremony is on Sunday March 6th, at 4pm. Tickets for that are $20, or $15 online. I was hoping to get over for the screening and awards, but flights and timing didn’t work out, so I’ll have to cross my fingers from here.

The festival is in beautiful Santa Monica, so if you’re in the area and fancy seeing some great shorts, go and check it out. The other shorts sound great, it looks like a really cool festival. Thank you for selecting my short!

Crazy For You is coming towards the end of its festival run now, and it's great to see how many festivals and awards it's collecting. When the last screenings have finished, it will enter the next stage of its life - I'm exploring a couple of avenues where everyone will be able to see it outside of festivals. Watch this space.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

I’ve just completed Dry January, in aid of Cancer Research. A lot of lovely people donated a total of £570, so thank you all (at the time of writing). It’s still open for donations if you feel like chipping in, for a great cause. But this post isn’t about convincing you to donate, it’s more of a reflection on my booze-free month.

Regular blog readers, Twitter followers or anyone who knows me knows that I like a cheeky drink or three now and again, as do quite a few people. I’m not reliant on it, I didn’t face any withdrawal symptoms or anything. But I was surprised to find how much I casually lean on it, habitually.

It’s almost a superstition. Tough day? Cheeky drink. Tough week? Cheeky drink. Watching a fun show or movie at home? Cheeky drink to accompany it. Finished a long project? Cheeky drink to celebrate. It’s a mind-trick a lot of us use to reward ourselves. And when you can’t drink, *everything* seems booze-related. Going for a meal? Have a glass of something with it. Out with friends? Get a round in. And so on.

January was pretty tough due to some bad real life stuff, and the loss of some cultural heroes - David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan. Attending a funeral the week Bowie died, on the *day* Rickman died, I could have happily had several drinks.

I didn’t dive back in as soon as February 1st arrived. But it was good to know that the option for a random drink was always there. We all need to treat ourselves with a variety of things, in moderation of course. But it’s been an interesting, surprising, occasionally frustrating process, which has made me give a lot of thought to this aspect of my life. And anything that makes you think is a good thing.

The best things about it? Raising a chunk of money for Cancer Research. No hangovers. Getting fitter. Although I did tend to reward myself with cake or sweets instead, so I might be the only person who did Dry January and weighed more at the end...

Would I do it again? Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know. If I can have a strict promise from everyone not to die that month, then I’ll think about it. Until then... cheers!